


those little anodynes

by sinkingsidewalks



Series: i want to be able to love you (without it hurting this much) [4]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff, have i actually written something not devastating?, is this fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 05:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14804973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinkingsidewalks/pseuds/sinkingsidewalks
Summary: “It’s okay.” She says softly because, surprisingly (or maybe not) it is. She can look after his kids for the afternoon while he handles an emergency and the thought of it doesn’t tear her whole heart to shreds.





	those little anodynes

**Author's Note:**

> So here's a little bit of cute kiddos as a reprieve from the sadness because the next one in this series is... A Lot  
> The title is from an Emily Dickinson poem because I am pretentious as fuck.  
> This is a work of complete fiction.

Scott calls earlier than usual one Sunday and she picks up the phone with a smile. “Hey.”

“Tessa.” He sounds rattled and relieved all at once. 

“Everything okay?” she asks, ignoring the pinching in her stomach from fear. 

He immediately starts nervous talking. Rambling on, each sentence stringing into the next, hardly making a point at the end of it all. 

“Scott.” She says, low and soothing in a familiar gesture to quell his ricocheting emotions. _Take a breath_ , she says. _Talk to me._

He breathes, and shortens his sentences. “Ellie’s at the hospital.” That’s half his junior team. “And she’s probably fine but-“

“You should be there.” Tessa agrees. 

“Right. And I hate to ask but Julie’s in Toronto for the weekend. And Mom’s been sick, and-“

“You need me to watch the girls.” She nods into the phone even though he can’t see. He can probably tell.

“Yeah.” He sighs. “But, Tess, if this isn’t-“

“It’s okay.” She says softly because, surprisingly (or maybe not) it is. She can look after his kids for the afternoon while he handles an emergency and the thought of it doesn’t tear her whole heart to shreds. 

There’s a sound on the line that’s him ramping up for more and she laughs softly. 

“Really, Scott. I’ll be there in like, fifteen. Okay?”

 

He answers the door out of breath and ushers her inside. “Hey, Tess.”

“Hey, any news?”

He shakes his head. “She’s at the ER with Mrs. Black.”

Ellie’s from Manitoba and, despite being only fifteen, has been living and training away from home for the last two years with her partner Peter. Scott’s only been working with them for the last eight months but from what she’s heard from him, he thinks they could go all the way. 

Tessa drops her purse by the door. “What happened?”

Scott makes a pinched face. “She fell off her bike.”

Tessa, who’d been expecting something gone wrong on the ice or in the gym almost laughs at such a pedestrian injury. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Scott frowns. “She fell on her arm pretty bad though apparently, they took her to the ER because they think it might be broken.”

Tessa winces. “She must be beating herself up.”

“She was still just freaking out when I talked to her.” He rubs at his forehead. His hairline’s pulled back a bit in the last couple years but it doesn’t look bad. “But if they are out for even one competition she’s going to take it pretty hard.”

Tessa nods sympathetically. The only thing worse than hurting yourself skating, is hurting yourself _not_ skating. 

The twins materialize from around the corner. The last time Tessa saw them was their birthday and they’ve obviously had a growth spurt since then. They crowd around each of Scott’s legs, the tops of their heads now coming up to his mid-thigh. 

“You remember Aunt Tess, right girls? She’s gonna hang out with you this afternoon, okay?”

“Yeah.” One answers and Tessa’s not sure which. Every time she sees them she expects them to start looking different from one another. They haven’t yet. 

“Etta,” he says, placing one hand atop her head and Tessa knows he’s answering her unasked question.

_Who is who?_

He meets her gaze. Etta, purple shirt. She can remember that. 

“You’re going to be good for Aunt Tess, right?”

She doesn’t answer but bobs her head. 

“And you too, Mells, right?”

“Yeah.” Amelia looks bored already, her gaze pulling back to the living room. 

“Okay, I love you guys.” He kisses both their foreheads, then Tessa’s cheek and Tessa wraps one arms around him and holds for a second because she can feel the tension leeching off him. 

“I’ll be back before dinner. They just had lunch so they should be good for-“

“It’ll be fine.” She says quietly, chin on his shoulder, he hasn’t let go of her. The twins have darted off. A bit of his body weight drops against her as he finally relaxes. 

“Thanks so much for doing this.” He says into her hair. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Same to you.”

He nods and they separate. She stands watching as he shoves his shoes on and hands him his phone he’s discarded on the hall table. 

“Bye girls!” He calls through the house, only getting one weak response, then he’s out the door.

There’s a small crash from the other room and with a sigh, Tessa heads into the living room to see what destruction they’ve been making. 

“Girls?” she asks as she rounds the corner, slightly taken aback by what she sees there. It seems that every piece of Lego in the known universe is spread out across the living room floor and the twins are actually, literally, almost knee deep in it. They’re working at a series of tall towers, one of which looks collapsed, hence what the crash must have been. 

Tessa grins. “Can I help?” She clears a spot by the couch and sits down. One, green shirt, Amelia, nods but her focus doesn’t sway from the reconstruction job. 

They work at it for an hour and a half, over the course of which there are two more partial collapses, with an intense focus Tessa’s never seen from a pair of four-year-olds before. She mostly just watches them, occasionally prying apart two stuck pieces or being enlisted into the search for a specific colour, but mostly she’s content to watch Etta’s lips thin into concentration like Scott’s do and Amelia pull at the ends of her own hair when she’s thinking. 

It hurts, puts into her head too many images of what could have been, but it’s an almost good kind of hurt. A hurt that assures that it is real, and that it means something. 

“Who are you?” Etta asks mildly, bored of the Lego and flopping down in Tessa’s lap. 

“I’m Aunt Tessa.” She says, amused. Have they forgotten Scott leaving already?

“No, you’re not.” Amelia has not yet given up on the towers and doesn’t look up as she speaks. 

Right, Danny’s wife. “Sorry, Aunt Tess.”

“No.” Etta giggles. Tessa tickles her to get a bit more of the sound. “Who _are_ you?” She puts more emphasis on the word like it’s supposed to mean something but to Tessa it really doesn’t. 

“What do you mean?” 

Amelia answers, obviously having gotten the point Tessa missed. “Like, Nikki is our cousin because her mom is our mom’s sister and that’s different from how Charlotte is our cousin because her dad is our dad’s brother. Mom was telling us, how we’re…”

“Related?” Tessa supplies.

“Yeah.” Etta confirms. “So who are _you_?”

Oh. “Um.” She thinks about the simplest possible way to explain the past three decades. “Well, you know your dad skated, in competitions, like he teaches other people to do now.”

Etta nods. Snuggling into her stomach. 

“Well, I was his partner. We skated and competed together, starting when we were little kids. So I’m not _really_ your aunt, but,” she hesitates, then decides that it is something Scott would say. “But you can have more family than just who you’re related to, so if you want me to be your aunt, I can be.”

Etta tilts her neck all the way back and looks at her. Her wide brown eyes blink slowly and crinkle at the corner just a little when she smiles. “Okay.”

“Okay?” 

Etta nods. Then Amelia flops down on top of her. “I’m hungry.”

Tessa glances at her watch, _3:15_. Snack time. She pats Amelia’s back. “Well, let’s go get something to eat.”

 

While the girls pull apart cheese sticks, Tessa texts Scott. 

_How’s it going?_

The reply is almost immediate. 

_Non-life threatening, we’re at the bottom of the list_

Then: _How’s it going there?_

_You may never get all the Lego out from under your couch_

_Gah I knew I’d regret the ‘let’s just dump the boxes’ strategy. How tall is the tower?_

Tessa laughs, of course he wants to know. 

_Approximately 1.3 twins high. It keeps falling, I suspect the structural integrity of the base is the problem_

_So you’re saying it’s my fault?_

_Pretty much._

There’s a pause.

_Ooh we may be seeing an actual doctor!!_

_Good luck! Give Ellie a squeeze for me_

She adds a couple hearts and locks her phone again.

 

The next two hours pass with an episode of a show about talking monster trucks (which is so weird Tessa seriously wonders what drugs the writer were on during its creation), all the Lego getting shoved aside in favour of a dance party, and a modified version of Candyland in which everyone wins.

Tessa gets another text from Scott once they’ve resettled in front of the TV. 

_Just a sprain! I’m dropping her off then picking up pizza for dinner. Your attendance is non-optional!_

She sends back a string of celebratory emoji’s.

By the time evening falls, they’re so deep in _Mulan_ that they don’t even notice when Scott gets home. 

“Hellooo?” he doesn’t get an answer. “I have pizza!” 

They bounce off the sofa with matching cries of ‘Daddy!’

Once the pizza’s finished, the kids are almost dropping off to sleep in their chairs. There’s a smudge of sauce across the front of Etta’s shirt and Amelia might actually have cheese in her hair. 

Scott watches her watch them. “Thanks for doing this T. Seriously.”

She smiles at the table and almost shakes her head. “It was fine, good even. We had a good time.”

“I’m glad.” He picks up her hand, their fingers slot easily together in the old way, her two fingers clutching onto his thumb, pinky between his ring and little fingers. He squeezes. She squeezes back. 

“I should get going.”

He nods, “I should get these two to bed.”

Another minute passes before either of them let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Let me know if you did! I'm also on tumblr @sinkingsidewalks  
> Also, Blaze and the Monster Machines is a really real kids show about talking monster trucks that is really, really weird. Have fun with that bit of knowledge I guess


End file.
